Rancher Clive Bundy can't win

Government authorities were wise to back off in April when scofflaw Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy surrounded himself with armed supporters to avoid paying more than $1 million in grazing fees and penalties he had accumulated over two decades.

As infuriating as it was that Bundy had repeatedly defied court orders and insisted he could graze his cattle wherever he pleased, he wasn't worth a bloody confrontation.

Three months later, though, Americans who obey the law and pay their bills might wonder how long Bundy and his gun-toting pals are going to get away with rejecting the rule of law.

It's bad enough Bundy is thumbing his nose at courts and government officials. Allowing armed paramilitaries to back down the government at gunpoint is worse.

In a nation awash in firearms, where a small but heavily armed fringe seethes with anti-government paranoia, that just invites more trouble. Indeed, a report released late last week by the Southern Poverty Law Center says the Bundy Ranch incident was carefully planned by armed right-wing groups, which have been galvanized by their perceived victory.

Both the Bureau of Land Management and the sheriff of Nevada's Clark County agree that Bundy crossed a line and should be held accountable.

How that might happen is a mystery, however. The only obvious sign of action is an unseemly finger-pointing spat between the BLM and the sheriff over who let the Bundy affair get out of control. The BLM says it "continues to pursue the matter aggressively through the legal system."

Most of Bundy's political supporters abandoned him after he was recorded venting racist views. Even so, Bundy says about two dozen armed defenders are still idling at his ranch, and his supporters tell him "they could have thousands more in a matter of hours," according to the Los Angeles Times.

That might be an exaggeration, though not by much, judging from what happened in April, when Bundy became a magnet for angry, armed men and women from all over the country. (For a time, Bundy's militia included Jerad Miller, who a couple of months later gunned down two Las Vegas police officers). Photos and video from those tense days in April show self-described "patriots" shielded behind highway abutments, pointing rifles in the direction of BLM officials who had rounded up hundreds of Bundy's cattle, as a federal judge had authorized them to do.

Bundy clings to the discredited theory that the federal government has no authority over public land in Nevada, despite the state's having written that authority into its constitution. However loony his legal theories, he's tapping into longstanding anger over federal control of Western lands. That's a legitimate topic of discussion, though not one that can be resolved at gunpoint.

Americans should hope there's more going on behind the scenes to make the point that this sort of behavior cannot stand. There's some virtue in a cooling-off period, but the longer the case runs without resolution, the more dangerous a message it sends.

- USA TODAY, July 14

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Rancher Clive Bundy can't win

Government authorities were wise to back off in April when scofflaw Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy surrounded himself with armed supporters to avoid paying more than $1 million in grazing fees and